Sports Policing and Tourism Safety in Summer Olympics

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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14105928

Held every four years, the Summer Olympics are the world’s biggest sporting events, posing a significant challenge for tourism and law enforcement professionals. Ensuring the safety of tourists and athletes on-site is the host country’s responsibility. In many cases, the target of terrorists is the tourism sector, which in some countries, accounts for a significant share of annual revenue.

Summer Olympics sports safety tourism safety

1. Introduction

The concepts of tourism safety and sports policing are inseparable ^[1]^[2]. One of the most important international events for sports tourism, drawing the largest crowds, is the Summer Olympics, held every four years, and posing a severe challenge to sports policing ^[1]. The study primarily looked for correlations between safety, the amount of money spent, and the number of live protection personnel employed. Securing the Olympics with the police force is challenging ^[3] because the games are attracting more and more crowds, and at the same time, more athletes are taking part in them. On the other hand, terrorism and extremism are becoming more active internationally. Today, not only traditional criminals can pose a threat to an international sporting event, but cybercriminals can paralyze an event from thousands of miles away ^[4].

2. Sports Policing and Tourism Security: The Role of Sports Policing in Tourism Safety

Order is a fundamental value for any society. However, fully guaranteeing security is a utopian idea, as it is not feasible. Nevertheless, the organizers of sporting events must strive to achieve the fullest possible safety ^[5]. Security must be “provided”, and one of the main goals of those involved in sports policing must be to prevent crime ^[1]. Maintaining order, and creating a sense of security for athletes has been a growing challenge for those working in sports policing. One reason for this is that the top events of both team and individual sports have become mass events (e.g., football matches, tennis competitions) ^[6]. Many elite sporting events move tens of thousands of people before, during, and after the sporting event. Sporting events have been enriched with show elements that also create new safety demands. Sports policing can be described as “tracking mode.” Extraordinary events and terrorist acts result in a constant rethinking of the definition of security in theory and practice. More people are appearing at sporting events, making sports policing a more significant task, and it has become increasingly challenging to ensure security ^[3].

The state’s primary task at sports events and the venues connected to them is to maintain and restore public safety ^[7]. The state can accomplish this task with the help of law enforcement agencies. In addition to law enforcement agencies, sports organizations, as organizers, are obliged to take necessary measures to ensure participants’ personal and property security during sporting events ^[8].

Currently, a safe organization is one of the essential requirements. Organizing and conducting sporting events imparts organizers with increasingly diverse tasks, especially during major international events (e.g., the Olympic Games, world championships). However, organizers need to find a balance between safety and the expectations of fans (tourists), i.e., that the increasingly lengthy safety measures do not discourage spectators from attending sporting events (e.g., clothing and package inspections) ^[2]. Among sporting events, the Summer and Winter Olympics, held every four years, are the ones that pose the most significant challenge to sports policing, as they have the largest number of participants and spectators, spread across a large area. The individual locations are sometimes hundreds of kilometers apart, making safe coverage of the area by the police force challenging ^[9].

Sports policing is a service, and is therefore constantly evolving to provide the highest possible level of service. In almost all major world competitions, the researchers can find innovative solutions to make safety as complete as possible while ensuring only minor inconveniences to spectators.

Therefore, sports policing and tourism safety are closely linked to public safety. More and more people are currently taking part in sports tourism, so ensuring their safety requires effort from those working in sports policing ^[10]. Thus, there is a need for better knowledge and collaborative research in the two areas and the dissemination of good practice worldwide.

3. The Role of Tourism Safety in Sports Policing

The role of tourism safety has increased in direct proportion to the increase in the number of participants in tourism ^[11]. If we talk about today’s tourism, security has become an inseparable part of it, which has grown into an independent field within the science of tourism. Its literature is becoming more critical, and its components are constantly expanding. The international literature distinguishes seven components of the field: public safety, transport safety, the safety of the natural environment, health safety, technical safety, consumer safety, and the safety of orientation/orienteering ^[12].

Due to the choice of topic, the study does not have the task of analyzing each factor separately at each Olympic venue, and this could even be the subject of independent research. Of course, it is not fair to rank each factor in order of importance. However, in the classical sense, security is one of the biggest attractions a tourist destination can have (e.g., a tourist is not robbed on the street or his valuables are not stolen while on holiday). The public safety component is closest to sports policing, which is one of the essential factors in tourism safety.

Sports policing is limited to a narrower area than tourism safety, as the task of sports policing is to maintain public order in the area of sports events and their immediate surroundings and handle the extraordinary events that can take place ^[7]. The point of connection between the two areas is to be found when sports tourists travel to a particular destination specifically to watch a sporting event. After the event ends, tourists leave the sports facility, ending the task of sports policing ^[13]. The tourist then uses various services (e.g., using means of transport, buying goods in a shop, eating food), encountering other types of risks that could endanger his safety. The police are responsible for maintaining public order and public safety ^[3]. Based on the above, it can be seen that the two areas cannot function properly without a better understanding of each other’s research results and closer cooperation in the future.

Modern security devices in the Olympic facilities make it possible to prevent those present from severe attacks. Near the facilities, increased police presence, facial recognition cameras, predictive software, and other security devices can also help prevent significant attacks by a large percentage. However, the deactivation of suicide bombers and lone insane perpetrators linked to terrorist organizations is no longer possible in the vicinity of the facilities. Moreover, most security policy experts believe that it is impossible to defend against suicide bombers, as their sacrifices significantly reduce the effectiveness of even the most modern security systems.

References

Green, M. Olympic glory or grassroots development? Sport policy priorities in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, 1960–2006. Int. J. Hist. Sport 2007, 24, 921–953.
Perić, M.; Đurkin, J.; Vitezić, V. Active event sport tourism experience: The role of the natural environment, safety and security in event business models. Int. J. Sustain. Dev. Plan. 2018, 13, 758–772.
Dell’Aquila, P. Olympic Games as Mega-Sport Events: Some Social-Historical Reflections on Recent Summer Olympic Games. Ital. Sociol. Rev. 2020, 10, 271–289.
Keesbury, E.A. The Impact of Cybercrime in the Professional Sporting Industry. Ph.D Thesis, Faculty of Utica College, Utica, NY, USA, 2016. Available online: https://www.proquest.com/openview/57df258bbe87b271f63924713b06f175/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750 (accessed on 9 December 2021).
Tóth, Á.N. Thoughts about the current issues of sports policing. Belügyi Szemle 2020, 68, 77–93.
Anderson, J. Policing the sports field: The role of the criminal law. Int. Sports Law Rev. 2005, 5, 25–31.
Tóth, A.N. Technological innovations in the field of sports policing. Часoпис Націoнальнoгo Університету Острoзька Академія 2021, 21, 24.
Tóth, A.N. The Application of Innovative Sports Policing Tools. Casopis Policajna Teoria a Prax 2021, 1, 1–24.
Carvalho, C.; Silva, A.C. Sport Tourism, Terrorism & Psychoanalysis: A Reflection on Contemporary Events from Heysel Park to the 2016 Olympics. 2017. Available online: https://comum.rcaap.pt/bitstream/10400.26/18346/1/2017.01.001.pdf (accessed on 31 December 2021).
Mátyás, S.; Tokodi, P.; Vári, V.; Tihanyi, M. Investigation of Certain Components of Tourism Safety in the Visegrád Countries. Intern. Secur. 2021, 13, 89–97.
Peter, T.E. Tourism Security; Elsevier: Oxford, UK, 2014.
Lia, R.; Guob, M. Effects of odd–even traffic restriction on travel speed and traffic volume: Evidence from Beijing Olympic Games. J. Trafic Transp. Eng. 2016, 3, 71–81.
Ritchie, B.W.; Adairs, D. Sport Tourism. Interrelationships, Impacts and Issues; Channel View Publications: Clevedon, UK, 2004; p. 302.

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Subjects: Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism; Criminology & Penology

Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register :

Adol Gogo

Ágnes Dr.Tóth

Lóránt Dénes Dávid

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Update Date: 27 May 2022

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1. Introduction

2. Sports Policing and Tourism Security: The Role of Sports Policing in Tourism Safety

3. The Role of Tourism Safety in Sports Policing

References